Anyone that's tried selling anything on CL have received these scammer messages?

Well YES of course!

Where do they come from?

Under rocks!

Does anyone know how they operate?

The most common scam is to give you a bad money order.

I usually include my number and as soon as the posting is listed, I get bombarded with these messages.

Good Lord man... don't share any personal information out there!!

I'm surprised whoever runs CL can't put an end to this nonsense.

Like trying to stop the tide. :(

You're not much help.DOH

I called to ask about a set of drums that this poor old man had his granddaughter list for him... problem was the pics didn't upload and I asked him for pics.... he told me that the drums were sold, and that he was waiting on a money order from a guy overseas blah, blah... when I told him it sounded like the common CL scam, he got offended, as if I was insulting his intelligence. Ok. I'd sure like to get my hands around a scammers neck one time..... sometime I think ebay does some of this crap too.

Ebay is/was a partial owner of CL...

Cheers

I'm curious to know if anyone knows how they get the information. Do they have guys sitting on computers scanning every CL ad ? I know the cashier check crap and how their movers will pick up item once check clears. Has anyone fell for one of these guys or do you know someone who has? If they're operating from overseas, they must have accomplices here. It seems there should be a way of catching these crooks.

I thought there was a legal battle between the two at one time.

I know a few people that absolutely would have fallen for it if they had not known me.... It must work pretty well, they've been running that exact scam since the beginning of CL. I yank them around until I get bored. It only works on really gullible people. If there was a way to catch them, it's must not be too effective.... the scammed money probably goes to fund ISIS.

There could have been...Ebay has there hand in quite a few different endeavors...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_eBay

Cheers

The scammers know for every so many emails they send, at least a few will respond and fall for the scam. Most of these originate overseas; often being Africa and India/Indonesia. With that, there isn't an agreement set up between our country and their's to prosecute. There's literally nothing you can do or track down when it comes to these foreign countries.

I previously worked as a police officer for 13 years and saw many people be taken for thousands and thousands of dollars at times. The scumbags tend to prey on the elderly and the lonely (saw a lot of romantic scams). Extremely sad.